


Guidance

by Septembers_coda



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brotherly Love, Case Fic, Dean Has Issues, First Love, Gen, Guidance Counselors, High School, Humor, Original Character(s), Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenagers, Therapy, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1774636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Septembers_coda/pseuds/Septembers_coda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean investigate a strange, unexplained assault in an inner city high school… posing as guidance counselors. It’s hard to tell what’s supernatural and what’s just hormones…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guidance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for zelda_addict as a pinch hit for the Spring Fic Exchange at spn_big pretzel on LiveJournal.

Dean had worked hard to adopt some of Sam’s more scholarly habits for this gig, but really, it went against the grain. He wouldn’t be here at all if Sam hadn’t pitched a fit when he tried to say no to this case.

“Are you crazy, Dean? Reports of kids behaving strangely, out of character stuff, unexplained assaults the attackers won’t talk about—remind you of anything?”

“Ghost possession is really rare, Sam. Chances are these kids just—”

“Need a little _guidance_?”

Dean should’ve known better than to fall right into Sam’s trap like that, but he had, and so here he was. A _guidance counselor_. Dean tried not to laugh out loud every time someone mentioned his “title;” was there anyone on Earth _less_ suited to giving advice of any kind, except possibly on how to kill things? 

_Maybe they need that advice after all,_ he reflected as he and Sam got out of the Impala in a pitted, cracked parking lot strewn with broken glass. He’d seen better-maintained parking lots for years-abandoned warehouses. 

Or maybe they’d had too much of Dean’s kind of advice already at such a tender age. They passed a line of kids waiting to go through metal detectors. One or two got patted down by armed security guards. “Things have sure changed since I was in high school,” Dean said.

“Well, to be fair, you never spent much time there,” Sam said, squinting coolly at the security guard who approached them at the staff entrance.

They got a cursory inspection from the tired, cynical guard. The administration of the school seemed much more afraid of the kids than of the Winchesters.

“Guidance counselors, eh?” the guard said as he left them at the main office. “Maybe you can talk some sense into the crazy little bastards.”

It was stunning, how easily the brothers had infiltrated the exhausted, harried administration. They barely even glanced at Sam’s carefully faked credentials. Rather than automatically believing them, it was like they just didn’t care. They seemed to think there wasn’t much more harm they could do even if they _were_ imposters.

Dean was restless sitting in an office all day, and he hadn’t learned much yet. Most of the kids who came to see him only did so because their teachers made them, and after about three hours of appointments one morning, Dean had certainly gotten his fill of teen angst. _No one understands me_ was the refrain of choice, and Dean hadn’t been able to offer much advice except threats of “straighten up and fly right, or you’ll end up like…” _Me,_ he wanted to say, but couldn’t, so he told them some vague horror stories instead. He got mostly eye-rolling indifference in return. 

However, by the second day he had a handful of “anonymous” notes from admirers, one sealed with a sparkly-purple lip-print. He was pretty sure he knew who left that one: a girl who spent an hour describing how her boyfriend was “mean” to her. Dean had some strongly-worded advice for _her,_ including where to kick him, if necessary, on his way to the curb. He might’ve been a little too warm in saying the asshat didn’t deserve her, if all the hearts drawn on the note were any indication. Well, so be it. If she started putting up with that crap now, it would only get worse. Dean enjoyed his daydream of the jerk getting kicked in the nads with those glittery, high-heeled plastic sandals…

“Mr. Ulrich?” He was jerked out of his reverie by the voice, reminding him he had one last appointment today. It was barely 3:00, but the school was deserted. He’d been about to leave and meet up with Sam: yesterday, none of the appointments scheduled after school had shown.

Dean’s Spidey-sense tingled immediately when he looked at the kid. Now he might be getting somewhere.

He glanced at the name on the schedule a faded, jumpy secretary had given him before disappearing, apparently forever. Roger Bryant. Wasn’t he one of the kids who…

“I was supposed to come see you because they think I hurt Millie,” the kid said miserably.

Dean took a closer look. Roger wouldn’t meet his eye. Skinny, non-descript, young-looking for a high-school kid, a little bit nerdy… kid wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he knew something. Dean could tell.

“Well,” said Dean, sitting forward and trying to get the kid to look at him. “Did you?”

“No,” sighed Roger. His tone was utterly defeated.

“I believe you,” said Dean promptly, and was rewarded by the smallest flicker of hope in the kid’s eye as he _almost_ looked at Dean. “So why was she throwing up in the nurse’s office for hours, saying it was your fault?”

The shields went back up immediately; Dean cursed his own indelicacy. “Dunno,” Roger shrugged.

“You don’t know. Like you told the cops.” 

The record said Roger had gotten suspended for a day, but they couldn’t prove anything, so now he was back, and had to get counseling. From Dean—poor kid.

Roger gave the tiniest shrug, studying his cheap, unfashionable sneakers. 

“Why don’t you tell me what really happened?”

This time he barely moved in response. Dean though his head might’ve twitched slightly: a no?

“What about you? Did Millie hurt _you_?” 

More silence. Reports from witnesses said Millie had punched Roger, but he’d denied it—maybe because he was embarrassed to get knocked down by a girl? Dean knew _he_ would be. Roger had refused to tell the authorities anything, so Millie hadn’t gotten in trouble.

The rest of their interview told Dean even less. He grew more and more frustrated, because it was clear the kid _knew,_ and if Dean could get the story out of him, they could probably solve this case before sundown. But the more frustrated he got, the less Roger said, if that was possible, until Dean finally stood up, slammed the desk with his fist and shouted, “Look, kid, I can’t help you if you won’t talk to me!”

He’d forgotten himself. This wasn’t a monster, or an angel, or his badass brother who was used to Dean’s outbursts. This was just an ordinary kid, who turned pale when Dean shouted and tried very hard to hide the tears that sprang to his eyes.

Dean clenched his jaw, biting back angry words as remorse flooded him. God, he was the worst at this. He tried to force himself to calm, to lower his voice, but just then, the door to “his” office burst open and Sam came flying in.

“Dean! Look, this crazy girl is—” He clammed up abruptly when he saw Roger.

“So I’m crazy now, huh? Just ‘cuz you don’t know what the hell you’re—”

A girl had followed Sam into Dean’s office. Tough-looking, ripped jeans and a Judas Priest shirt, though Dean scoffed internally that she’d probably never actually _heard_ the band…

Or he’d thought it was internally, until she said, “Shut up; I have, too! I love all their songs! What do _you_ know? You probably like Kelly Clarkson!”

Dean happened to be looking at Roger when she said that, and realized the taunt was really directed at him. Roger, near tears already, flushed bright red at her words and tried to shrink against the back wall of the office.

Then, unexpectedly, the girl added, “Not that she’s that bad.” She still sounded gruff and angry, but Dean heard something there that he recognized. The girl was looking at Roger.

Dean glanced at Sam, who looked at him helplessly—pleadingly, even—over the girl’s head.

“Millie, I presume?” said Dean. “Roger, I’m gonna let you talk to my—associate for a minute while your girlfriend and I have a little chat.”  
,  
 _That_ got a reaction—out of both kids. Millie cussed Dean out while Roger shrilly, with an edge of panic and many frantic glances in Millie’s direction, denied that she was his girlfriend.

Sam murmured something to Roger while Dean turned to Millie and bluntly said, “Sit your ass down.” She was shocked enough at a “teacher” using profanity that she promptly obeyed, and Sam took Roger out of the room.

* * *

Sam walked the boy down the hall to his office, nearly weak with relief. One look at Roger had told him that _here_ was someone he could handle. The relief seemed to be mutual; Sam winced a little at the idea of this sensitive kid stuck with Dean for a counselor.

Not quite as much as he cringed remembering his conference with Millie. The girl was crude, defiant, completely uncooperative, and possessed of a chip on her shoulder bigger than any he’d ever seen. Except one.

Yep, Dean should be able to handle Millie just fine. Sam had thought he could, but all he got out of her were rude jokes and lies. He could see between the lines of some of this talk, but not all of it. She was definitely hiding… well, just about everything.

“You OK?” he said quietly to Roger as he ushered him into his office.

He wasn’t OK. But Sam knew what to do. 

“I would never hurt her,” said Roger. “I… I don’t know why she threw up so much. She said what she had me drink was whiskey and Coke. I didn’t want to drink it, but…”

Sam knew. Roger liked Millie, a lot, and would have done anything she asked of him, even if it got him in trouble. 

Soon enough, the whole story came out. Millie and Roger had been friends in middle school, but had drifted apart when they got to high school. Millie started listening to heavy metal and hanging out with kids who didn’t want anything to do with shy, scholarly Roger. Roger thought Millie didn’t, either. She’d been mean lately, making fun of Roger along with the rest of her friends, then she stopped talking to him entirely, until she caught him behind the bleachers in the gym one day and tried to get him to drink “whiskey.”

“It didn’t smell like alcohol,” he said. “It smelled weird, and tasted really gross, but it seemed really important to her, so I drank it all.”

“And how did you feel afterwards?”

“Fine—that’s what’s weird. I didn’t feel any different. She was… mad that I wasn’t drunk, I guess? She hit me in the stomach and ran out. Some other girls found her throwing up in the bathroom and took her to the nurse’s office, and the security guards came and got me.” Roger paled at the memory.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone this?” Sam asked gently, though he knew the answer.

“She got in trouble once already, a month ago, and I didn’t want her to get in trouble again,” Roger mumbled, not meeting Sam’s eye. “She could get expelled.”

* * * 

“So you like this kid Roger, eh?”

“Shut up!” Millie turned a little red, but her jaw jutted determinedly. “I do _not._ You don’t know _anything._ ”

Dean leaned across the table and gave her his hardest stare. It was like the antithesis of Sam’s puppy-dog eyes, and it worked like a charm. It only took about two seconds for her to spill.

“He wouldn’t have gotten in trouble if he’d just told them I gave him the stuff, and hit him! He wasn’t supposed to… it wasn’t supposed to hurt him, or me, it was just… I didn’t know, I swear!” She sniffled a little bit, but then put on an even tougher look. “I… didn’t mean to hit him, either,” she said miserably.

“Yeah, I been there. You know the poor kid has it bad for you, right?”

Again, big reaction. Millie shot out of her chair. “No he doesn’t!” she practically screamed. “That’s the problem! That’s the whole reason I…” She clapped her hand over her mouth, a cartoonish picture of guilt.

Dean _knew_ it. He had her now.

* * *

Sam and Dean opened the doors of “their” offices almost simultaneously.

“Dean, I think Millie gave Roger a—” Sam stopped abruptly when he caught sight of Millie, skulking in the doorway in Dean’s shadow.

“A love potion,” Dean finished for him, holding up a sheaf of dog-eared papers in one hand and a leather bag in the other. 

“You told me you wouldn’t say it in front of him!” Millie whisper-shrieked at Dean.

“No I didn’t. I said it wouldn’t matter even if I did. He’s not gonna get it, Millie. You’re gonna have to spell it out for him.” Dean frowned sternly at her. “And I already said it, but I’ll spell it out for _you_ one more time. You ever pull any of this witchcraft shit again, I am gonna come back here and… well, let me tell ya, you’ll think puking your guts out for hours will seem like a party compared to what I’ll do.”

He turned to Sam. “I need you to take a look at this. It’s Latin, but I think I got the gist. And I think we’ll be fine, once we burn all of dear, departed Auntie Mae’s spells and fetishes… and if Millie _swears on her life_ that this is all of them.”

Roger was standing, utterly stunned, behind Sam. Dean thought the poor kid looked as shell-shocked as having a fake guidance counselor tell you magic was real, and being fifteen, and finding out the girl you loved, first time you fell in love, loved you back—all in one day—could make him. 

But Dean felt a kick of admiration as he watched the kid suck it up—he wouldn’t have thought he had it in him—and step forward, so that no one was between him and Millie. He was bright red, but he looked her in the eye when he stammered, “Why… why did you try to cast a love spell on me?”

“Why didn’t it _work_?” Millie cried. She tried to shout, but it faded to a whimper as she looked from Roger to Sam and Dean.

“Because he already loves you,” said Sam quietly. He had taken the papers from Dean and was squinting at them intently. He looked up, glancing between the other three and landing on Dean. “Both parties have to take it, on the day before the autumn equinox—last day of summer, that is,” he said, referring to the sheet again. “The caster, the one who wants the other person to love her, braids a lock of his hair with hers—”

 _“That’s_ why you had that jerk Brent make fun of my hair, tell me to get a haircut, and come after me with the scissors in shop class?” Roger was red again, but Dean felt his pride in the kid growing. He looked Millie in the eye, and there was defiance in his.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” said Millie. For the first time, her belligerence was fading, and she looked near tears. “I knew he would do whatever I told him to, he’s such a follower… I dared him to, and told him he had to bring me the hair to prove he’d done it. I didn’t know he would be so mean about it, or cut off so much. I… I liked your long hair.”

Roger frowned and looked down. Sam cleared his throat and continued. “Anyway, she brews the potion with the braid of their hair at exactly midnight when it becomes the last day of summer, and they both have to drink it before midnight on the first day of autumn… but if you read the fine print, it basically says that, uh, ‘greed in matters of the heart will cause woe to befall she who’… uh… takes too much? Basically, if he already loves you, nothing happens to him and you get really sick. But that’s all. You’re lucky,” he said, turning to Millie, “This is a relatively benign spell.”

“Aunt Mae always said she was a white witch,” said Millie. “I didn’t think it was real, I just… well, none of the ingredients seemed poisonous, and I thought Roger would never like me again unless…” She stopped, her chin jutting out, shrugging her shoulders almost spasmodically. “Whatever. I don’t even care.”

“You didn’t like _me_!” Roger said. “You wouldn’t watch American Idol with me anymore, even before we came to school here, and you… had all those new friends…”

“Well, so did you! And you got all smart, going to science camp… you didn’t want to hang out with the heavy metal losers…”

“No… I wanted to hang out with _you,”_ said Roger softly.

As Millie’s face lit up, Sam gestured with his chin down the hall, and he and Dean walked to the end to give the pair some privacy.

“Think it’s OK?” Sam asked, looking down at the papers and the leather bag. “We should go by her house, search her room and make sure there’s nothing left.”

“On it,” said Dean. “We can do it while these two are talking. I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone.”

Sam nodded. “We should burn most of this stuff, but there’re some charms in here that might come in handy.”

Dean shuddered. “That’s all you, my brother,” he said. “Gah. Witches. Give me the creeps.”

“Says the guy who loves a good beheading.”

“Hey, vampires are simple. Like I always say. Monsters I get. People— _teenagers_ — are crazy.”

Sam nodded agreement as they heard Roger’s voice rise above the murmur the pair were speaking in. “Well, I don’t know if I want to date a girl who’d have some jerk cut off my hair. You couldn’t even do it yourself? Or maybe you could, you know, just _talk_ to me.”

“There might be hope for that kid after all,” said Dean, as they slowly walked out of the school together. “Don’t know about the girl, though.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Sam, smiling as the sound of Millie’s protests—not quite apologies—came to them. There was a hopeful flavor of laughter in the air between the two teenagers. “If she just learns to say what she means—express how she feels instead of getting violent—she’ll be all right.”

“I guess she means well,” said Dean gruffly. He didn’t quite look Sam in the eye. “And… you know. She probably really loves him.”

Sam smiled. “He loves her, too.”

“Enough to put up with all her shit?”

“More than enough,” Sam answered.

~The End~


End file.
